Serpentine Arete on Dragontail

Myself and Deverton climbed Serpentine Arete 2,000 ft 5.8 Grade IV, 23 hrs car to car last sunday. I haven't done a ton of long alpine routes and I definitely learned some lessons on this one. I felt the route had 5 great pitches, but the looseness (comparable to cascade volcanoes in the summer) of the upper pitches really detracted from the total quality of the climb. The quality pitches included a gorgeous finger crack, and a perfect hand crack for a full rope length. Shortly after the fun crux pitches things became a slog just to get off the peak. I am hard pressed to recommend this route to others unless you really want a low 5th class adventure. The descent down Aasgard pass also detracted from the overall adventure. We were expecting a little more of a real trail to descend (at night with one headlamp, Aasgard is sketchy to descend). The positive thing to come out of this was that we brought enough food and water for the whole adventure. I think this is the first time that has hapened for me personally. (probably means we brought too much, huh...)
Notes for next time:
dont let the stoner be in charge of the alarm (he went back to sleep and got us up way late,
always bring 2 headlamps,
bring less shit,
anticipate more time for approach,
simul climb on shorter rope lengths (60m = way to much drag on low 5th class),
dont do it car to car; it hurts,
Oh, and make sure your ride waiting back in icicle doesn't have to be somewhere on monday early; they left without me and took all my stuff. I had to take the train back to OR. Fuckers.

Over all, a helluva adventure, but no pictures unfortunately. And I think I had a slightly better time than Dev did. :)

Garden update

Our garden officially rocks! anyone want cucumber? Just say the word! We have already gotten a ton of squash and zooks, tomatoes are just starting to go crazy, carrots are perfectly straight and big, the pumpkins are doubling in size every week, and we've gotten a modest first blueberry crop.
Lessons for next year:
more basil
less cucumber
more eggplant
more winter squashes
earlier start on the onions & garlic
more leeks (spaced wider)
more green beans (planted 2 wks apart)

Oh yea, and Colleen is officially an excellent cook! I "graded" the "final exam" on a blueberry pie/cobbler she made, as well as some curry/squash quinoa. She scored very high marks for both on taste as well as presentation. There was also some scrumptious zuchinni bread made recently.

the way too long AK post

Ok, sorry this has taken so long to post. Col and I have been having waaay too much fun the past 4 weeks to slow down long enough for a blog post. At the end of June we(Colleen, Ariel, Sesha, Jake, and I) went for a 10 day trip to Alaska, with six of those days spend sea kayaking in two inlets across the bay from Homer, AK. Sesha’s uncle Steve lived in Anchorage and was an immense help with logistics before and after our adventure. His friend actually drove 4 hrs from Homer just to pick us up in Anchorage and give us a ride. (Thanks Tom!) On the way down Tom also acted as our tour guide, making sure to stop at all the cool side trips and wildlife (just on the drive we saw moose+babies, eagles, dall sheep, beaver, and otter).
For boats, Louie and Jasmine pointed us towards True North Kayak on the Homer Spit. As TNK ferried us across the bay I was the one tasked with remembering directions on the exact locations of our camp spots and yurts. We were dropped us with our mountain of gear at the boats with little fanfare and then proceeded to figure out how to fit a square peg (our gear) through an oval hole (the boat hatches). After two to three hours we had it all packed. We then paddled one mile, got hungry, and exploded the boats again looking for lunch! We made camp on a sandy point two thirds of the way into Sadie Cove and hiked around for a bit. AK, being bear country, had us (mostly me I think) a little nervous, so earlier when Steve insisted we take a revolver with us, I didn’t hesitate. Thus, on our land explorations we quite literally “loaded for bear.” (we didn’t see a one the whole trip). Sesha and our newfound friend Mike (Tom’s summer hand) met us at camp the next morning by ferry and joined up for the rest of the trip. We paddled in the morning to a yurt at the mouth of the bay and relaxed for the afternoon. Near the yurt was a perfect cliff jump, so we had to do it. Swimming in AK was a must-do for bragging later. Unfortunately Mike slipped getting out and put a deep gash on the bottom of his foot (definitely would have gotten stitches if we had been near a doctor). Sans Mike and Sesha the next morning we hiked 4,000 vert. ft. up a ridge to an amazing view of the surrounding area. Above treeline the trail petered out into rolling heather tussocks all around so we took off cross country to the summit on a spongy 8” mat of tundra. Tired of yelling “hey bear” on the way down, we called out different types of cheese for the 4 mile descent with only a few repeats.
I pointed out earlier that I was in charge of navigations throughout the trip. Well, I kiiiinda forgot where a few of the beaches were. They all look so similar after three days of bobbing around on the ocean! It all turned out ok thanks to a salmon hatchery which let us use a phone to call TNK for directions. And we actually found a better spot on an island for one night.
The second to last night, we stayed in a yurt near the end of the inlet. This was a really nice spot because we had a nice view of the bay and there was a Bald Eagle chick in a nest 40 ft from the yurt. I climbed a tree next to it for better photos and really felt like a pro wildlife photographer, dodging mother eagles, dangling from branches, and trying to get the perfect shot. Unfortunately I think they are all just good to mediocre photos. I needed a longer lens. (Of course it comes down to more gear!)
The last full day, Col Mike, Jake and Ariel went for a hike up a knife edge ridge while Sesha and I took the opportunity to paddle 4 miles to the far end of the bay on the glassy morning water. After a paddle through arches, past otters, and dodging seals, afternoon found us camped on the point again for our final night. Sesha and Jake paddled to a spring for water and I decided to go for a solo paddle to some arches off the coastline for the evening (had to paddle through all the arches I could find). After an hour or two of that I got back to Sesha and Jake flipping out about Killer Whales they’d paddled with (so jealous!) for an hour. We went out to try and find the pod at about 11pm (still light mind you) but only found a few porpoises (still, a pretty good runner up prize!). Sesha started each days paddling with, “Guys, today is a whale day,” and she finally got to see them, up close and personal.
We rounded out the trip with a wonderful hour long tasting and tour at the Fry’s Bear Creek Winery (I left with a case of assorted berry wines). The 4 person swing there is amazing! We also shot some guns at Tom’s cabin in the woods. One was a true elephant gun that, after two shots, left my shoulder veeery sore the next day. This was an amazing trip made all the easier by the kind people we met along the way. We were planning our return trip before we had even gotten on the plane to leave!

I made it into Climbing magazine! (AK coming soon)

It isn't as amazing as it sounds, but it was a real surprise when I saw my name there. I sent a letter to the editor telling them about a new campground fee at the previously free Skull Hollow CG on BLM land and it was published. I really didnt think they'd just publish it verbatim, but whatever. I guess thats what happens in letters to the editors, huh.

I am withholding the post on our Alaska adventure until I get all my photos organized (700+), but check back for that soon. It should be up by the end of the coming week (when Col and I go down to the Sierras for some more vacation time.

Here's a teaser:

huge roof .14.c/d

fun to watch

Passages

RIP Micah Dash, Johnny Copp, Wade Johnson.
A really good Johnny Copp Film
What happened

I don't know them personally, but in the various climbing films and articles I've seen over the years, these three guys were all amazing people and climbers. Every loss in the climbing community feels like it was a close friend.

TED

I have started watching a lot of TED. TED is an organization of great minds who come together each year and give 10-20 minute talks or performances on any number of different subjects. The speakers are all selected because they have some very forward and PRACTICAL ideas. I guess I shouldn't just say ideas, because many of the subjects are showing a business model, or creation that has already been successful in the real world. The talks are all free on the web (thank goodness because it is a $6,000 per person club if you want to be there in person!). There's also a good number of musical performances too. Check it out! You wont regret it.

on the river

Colleen and I are camped out on the Willamette this morning and we chose a most interesting campsite with lots of entertainment. We have an industrious and well fed beaver going back and forth 10 ft in front of our feet. There were 10 students who passed in 2 orc rafts at 9:45 last night with no shirts (it was cold then) or camping supplies. By far the most random is a boiling cauldron or water. Yup. There is a huge gush of water shooting up from the sand bar and then heading upriver in a slightly separate channel from the river. It doesn't look like the water is coming from a pipe, and the boil is a little higher in elevation on the sandbar than the river. Weird.
I guess I could also mention that we are on the river because we are paddling from Eugene to Corvallis for the weekend. I think we could have done the trip in a day but we kinda just wanted to take it easy and camp. The upper streches were a little speedy at times (for a 17 ft long kayak anyway...) and surprisingly clear (who'd have guessed the water below Eugene looked drinkable!). Once we got to about a half way point, several tributaries turned the river into the green lazy thing we know in Corvallis.

Col relaxing on our beach. Easiest camp spot ever.
The beaver buddy we shared the beach with
had to test out the underwater function on the camera
Snacktime on the water
Colleen just cruisin along in the perfect weather.



People pay good money to do the things we do. How lucky are we...!

granite, oh blessed granite!

Climbing is my thing and this weekend I got to do my thing. I started the weekend with the homies from the bay area who were driving up to sasquatch festival. It was great to talk about old times and watch them flail on the climbing wall. We roadtripped up to the 'squatch festival for the evening and got lost and found several times amongst the 20,000 or so tent campers there. I felt kinda old running around all the teenieboppers there, but whateva. I know I rock in my old age. After unsuccessfully trying to get scott laid several times, we quit and went to bed. Logan and Melvin were kind enough to pick me up the next morning on the way to Leavenworth so off to climbing it was! I tell ya, pulling into a granite wonderland like that is just magical. Gets my heart going every time. The original plan was to get on serpentine arte IV 5.8 on dragontail peak, but that was very snowed in so We played for two days on the pearly gates wall near snow creek wall. There I got my MUCH needed crack fix. In two days we threw up everything worth doing, with the highlight for me being a redpoint of a 10.c roof finger crack. Just heaven. Granite is granite is just so soft and cuddly to climb on compared to so much else (jtree excluded). I didn't have to tape up once the whole time in Lworth. Oh, and there were some mtn goats cruising. Around that were very very friendly and provided some very nice photo ops. I think they are the snow creek wall goats who came down due to the raptor nesting on outer space ( no climbers means no climber handouts and pee to lick up). Oh, and icicle creek was a raging river, with about 5 miles of massive constant class V+ water.
We rounded out Sunday evening with some minigolf, but not before HOT Rainier Beer from the car, chips and queso, and another twelver of can beer in the parking lot. Winning the round, Logan and I tied about ten under Greg and Dev. At about the 5th hole of golf when all the brews were kicking in, I heard the best line from the weekend: "So uh, who's driving home?!?"
For monday we drove partway home then stopped at Tieton for some basalt column cragging. I would compare Tieton to trout creek, only with more broken colums and a but more jagged in spots. And a ton more routes. I would call the ratings there a little stiffer than leavenworth or smith, but a little softer as the grade gets harder. Definitely going to have to go back there again for a weekend or two. My favorite lead of the weekend, the 10.c finger crack.

Plastic

and, in light of the latest fanatical coverage of the newest threat to humanity, I give you this:

Adventure report

This won't be that last time I ignore my blog for a month or so, but Sorry. Ok, with that said, heres the adventure report for April. I got out to smith a few weeks ago with an eastcoaster who moved out to Newport last year. Pretty normal guy(for being from Boston). Our goal was to climb 2000 vertical feet in a day, but we only got half because of the absolutely epic winds. 40+ mph gusts on a 6 pitch 5.8 X ridge climb is sketchy as hell. We bailed on that and spent the evening eating Cody's freshly slaughtered, apple fed beef in his wood stove heated 20x20 canvas tent, while it rained, froze, and then snowed outside. If that aint camping, I dont know what is.

Two weekends ago, I organized an OMC trip up Shasta. That went about as well as a mountaineering trip could possibly go. we had temps in the mid 80s during the day, with a nice freeze at night. We split into two groups of 4, with the skiiers going up west face via hidden valley and my group climbing Caseval ridge on the southwest side of the mountain. Greg and I climbed Avy Gulch two years ago, and I must say, Caseval is head and shoulders above AG. It begins at 7000 ft or so, climbs up to 9600 and there it levels out and follows a half mile of steep traversing on snow slopes. Then you gain elevation quickly up one of two gullys next to the ridge (we opted to downclimb and ascend the east face for a short time to avoid a large cornice on top of the west gully). From that bench at 11700 or so you get back into cruising up rock bands and snow slopes for another thousand feet. A final band of red rock is encountered with a narrow snow ramp with tons of exposure, then we hopped onto misery hill for the final summit approach. Total time to summit from bivy at 9500 was just over 7 hours. The glissade down Avy Gulch covered about 2000 ft in 5 minutes. Fun! Oh, and when we talked to everyone back in the parking lot, we found out that Celene didn't handle the thin air so well and puked 5 times above 14,000 ft. but she topped out anyway, so you go girl!

This most recent weekend, We had a party at our place on friday night, then I went with Greg to Smith for the day, then I went up to see Colleen's parents new house in Camas. They overlook the gorge, and have an absolutely amazing house. Want!
I am kinda glad I didnt bring my camera to smith, because Greg and I both had an absoulutely terrible day at smith; one of the worst. It has been a really long time since I didn't enjoy climbing, but this was one of those days. We climbed two laps each on Herasy first thing and turned our arms to jello for the rest of the day, making everything else we climbed scary and unpleasant. bummer dood! Col and I rounded out the weekend with a paddle on the lovely little Lacamas Lake near her folk's house. I was pleasantly surprised by the wildlife that was able to exist there among the zillions of boaters and fishermen. We watched ospreys catch fish litterally right in front of fishermen, and then watched a big bald eagle swoop in and chase the ospreys until they dropped the fish so he could get it. This happened 30 ft over our heads, and we got to watch the bald eagle eat the fish on a tree branch from about 20 ft away. Just a really nice remainder of the weekend to compensate for the crappy day of climbing.

Teabag the President!

The conservatives are getting rather irate now! Dear god what will they think of next!
Teabagging conservatives everywhere!

youtube

I've got a nice collection of youtube videos up now. Check 'em out!

Published!

Oh, and Col and I just got tickets to Alaska this summer! We are going to try to go on a kayaking adveture and likely a little hiking too.

I found out 2 really cool things yesterday. I won a contest and am going to have two photos (above) published in an upcoming book on climbing, annnd the American Alpine Institute took a video I posted and put it on their blog! It feels really neat to actually be in something besides facebook! The AAI blog is a really cool feature they have now. There is a lot of entertaining video on there if you need a pick-me-up at work. I climbed Hood last weekend (found out about the trip about 2 hrs before everyone was leaving). Here's a little movie from it. Also, the Corvallis Red Dress Hash took place last weekend (yes I climbed Hood and then ran 4 very drunken miles to 10 bars than night). If you want a taste of Hashing, here ya go!

Address to Congress

I think Obama's address to congress this evening will go down in history as a turning point and one of the most important and well delivered statements in US History. I have no doubt in my mind he can lead us back to the best nation in the world. What a GUY!

a new addiction

I have a terrible new addiction. I get on craigslist, and I look for things I don't need. There is so much great stuff in the "free" category! Not even junk either; I have noticed a trend of the really good stuff being given away by estranged girlfriends. They call it all junk and put it out in the front yard and post an address. Today I found a guy selling shitake mushroom blocks. I think I am going to get one or two. 10$ a block for tons of shroomies sounds great to me!(If you are interested I can pick u up one). Craigslist will keep me busy at work. I got a blackberry and have bookmarked craigslist. I think I will call it just craig. Yea, craig and I are becoming fast friends.

Snow caving and Composting

I have wanted a proper composter for some time, but the damn things were too expensive ($250 easy for a 55 gal drum on a spindle) I looked around at plans and finally just decided to build my own. This is the result of combining a few different ideas. The whole thing ended up costing about $70 for the barrel and hardware, but I think it could be done for about $50 without too much skimping. If you are inspired by this, I recommend finding a barrel that previously contained food-grade material (not industrial cleaners), and using stainless steel in all the fittings. This one has two doors; one big one on the side for getting compost out with a shovel, and a small door on the top for adding daily material. A spindle added too much to the cost, so we are going to roll the barrel around the yard whenever it needs mixing! Easy!



I also must show off our snow cave from this weekend. It was a perfectly constructed 3 enterance, 5 person +2 dogs cave that kept us all quite warm, with almost no drippage during the night. We had a kitchen outside, a fire pit with a 5 ft wall windbreak, Cone Peak to ourselves to watch the sunset and get turns all day on, and lots of tequila and good wine to wind the evening down with.



It is currently snowing in Corvallis, and dumping in the mountains, so I am going to play hookey tomorrow, and hit the slopes! Winter is Back!

You know she's a keeper when.....

Today, I retired a pair of boxers. they were yellow, with a big smiley on them. Whats special about these, is that they were the first pair of boxers that Colleen ever gave me. (Awwww) I figure, if you have worn through a pair of boxers, and the gal is still around, she must be a keeper. (Ooooor, I have really rancid farts). Either way, Colleen is a keeper. To those of you with a significant other, I highly recommend this test as a bellwether for relationship success.

In outdoorsy news, we rocked the weekend with stuff around, but not in, Corvallis. As a famous mountainclubber once said, "the key to enjoying Corvallis is to get away as frequently as possible"(or something like that). We kayaked from Peoria Landing down to town on Saturday with a lunch stop filled with agate hunting on a gravel bar (I found a fatty crystal laden one!). Sunday Colleen ran part of her marathon course in Eugene (yes, she is actually going to run it this time) while I rope soloed and aided at Columns all day. I really can think of no better way to spend a day than nonstop climbing with tunes in your ears and rock in your hands.

Oh, and the best news I have heard in months: Corvallis is going to get a Trader Joes soon!!!! An inside source who shan't be named informed us that the shopping center on the corner of 9th and circle (Riteaid) is they are looking right now. Woot!

Carry on!

Antarctic time lapse

If anyone was wondering what Logan or cousin Jack is experiencing in the deep south, the above video probably gives you a good idea of the beauty they are surrounded by.